more on meucci

Here's more on the Bell-Meucci controversy.

enrico mancinelli

Here's a great Italian I'd like to meet, or make a neo-neorealist film about.

announcing a change to the links section

Ciao ragazzi! I'm going to be running the links section a little differently starting the week of the 25th. This section is going to be relabelled "great italians" and will feature one great Italian a week, posted on Thursdays. Then I'm going to introduce two new links sections: resources, and news and events. Resources will be devoted to useful language learning tools available around town and online, updated once a week also on Thursdays. And news and events will provide links to concerts, festivals, readings, films, etc., updated fairly regularly throughout the week. "Da non perdere" entries will be specified as such but posted under great italians. So I'll link to a great Italian's bio for instance, then single out and link to one of his works where appropriate as a "da non perdere".

These changes will provide you with more info, in a more organzied and easier to access manner. You may want to adjust your subscriptions accordingly. They won't start up until the week of September 25 to give you time.

Ciao for now!

ring my bell

Who was the father of 20th-century communication, Alexander Graham Bell?

Or Antonio Meucci?

We all know the answer of the U.S. Congress. What's yours? Weigh in on our forum.

da non perdere

Today's "da non perdere" could also be a "great Italian" entry - it's a tribute to...

Giacomo Leopardi

Regarded by many as a close rival of Dante for the title of Greatest Italian Poet.

Here is a link to a reading of his "Il sabato del villaggio". The text follows below so you can read along. And here are links to the complete manuscript of the poem in the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli: I, II, III.

Giacomo Leopardi

Il sabato del villaggio

La donzelletta vien dalla campagna,

In sul calar del sole,

Col suo fascio dell'erba; e reca in mano

Un mazzolin di rose e di viole,

Onde, siccome suole,

Ornare ella si appresta

Dimani, al dì di festa, il petto e il crine.

Siede con le vicine

Su la scala a filar la vecchierella,

Incontro là dove si perde il giorno;

E novellando vien del suo buon tempo,

Quando ai dì della festa ella si ornava,

Ed ancor sana e snella

Solea danzar la sera intra di quei

Ch'ebbe compagni dell'età più bella.

Già tutta l'aria imbruna,

Torna azzurro il sereno, e tornan l'ombre

Giù da' colli e da' tetti,

Al biancheggiar della recente luna.

Or la squilla dà segno

Della festa che viene;

Ed a quel suon diresti

Che il cor si riconforta.

I fanciulli gridando

Su la piazzuola in frotta,

E qua e là saltando,

Fanno un lieto romore:

E intanto riede alla sua parca mensa,

Fischiando, il zappatore,

E seco pensa al dì del suo riposo.

Poi quando intorno è spenta ogni altra face,

E tutto l'altro tace,

Odi il martel picchiare, odi la sega

Del legnaiuol, che veglia

Nella chiusa bottega alla lucerna,

E s'affretta, e s'adopra

Di fornir l'opra anzi il chiarir dell'alba.

Questo di sette è il più gradito giorno,

Pien di speme e di gioia:

Diman tristezza e noia

Recheran l'ore, ed al travaglio usato

Ciascuno in suo pensier farà ritorno.

Garzoncello scherzoso,

Cotesta età fiorita

È come un giorno d'allegrezza pieno,

Giorno chiaro, sereno,

Che precorre alla festa di tua vita.

Godi, fanciullo mio; stato soave,

Stagion lieta è cotesta.

Altro dirti non vo'; ma la tua festa

Ch'anco tardi a venir non ti sia grave.

night of italian stars

I'm a bit late on this one but here it is anyway. Umberto Tozzi (of "Gloria" and "Ti amo" fame) is going to be performing along with Ital-pop superstar Pupo at Fallsview Casino Resort Niagara Falls on Sunday October 8 at 3 and 7 PM. Tickets are selling out fast. Great way to get your povera mamma out of the house for a change.

a real treat

This link needs no introduction. Canta maestro!

nino ricci

The Web's a giant lake I plunk these little posts into like pebbbles. If the only ripple I make is introducing you to novelist Nino Ricci, I'll have achieved a worthy aim. He's going to be reading on College on September 14, an event da non perdere - Nino e' un grande scrittore molto simpatico.

presenza

Today's link is a virtual exhibition on Italian-Canadian heritage. Since most of you, my students, are Canadian, I feel that Italian culture as it evolved in Canada may be of greater interest to you than the peninsular strain. And since a lot of you are dating Italian-Canadians, links like this may hold additional appeal. If I'm out to lunch, leave a comment! Either way it's nice to use the links as a break from and context for the grammar and language elsewhere on the site. Ciao for now!

italo-canadian connection

Here's an inspirational story about Canadian architecture students who study in Rome. That's what I love about Canada, our mutually beneficial openness to the world.

buon viaggio!

If scratch isn't an issue talk to these guys before you book your next trip to il bel paese.

shop like a wop

Here's your guide to T.O.'s Italian goods, freshly hatched. In bocca al lupo Fab!

forza rita!

Let's hope St. Clair isn't rammed if we win this one!

beyond grammar

Anyone into the history and development of l'italiano will enjoy this site, a painstaking labour of love by a dedicated amateur offering, as he puts it, "comments and curiosities" on la bella lingua.

baseball all'italiana

Glad the World Cup is over? Don't be. Italy might just be in the World Series soon. Che guaio!

something for the foodies

Here's the web home of a magazine I saw while standing in line at Michael-Angelo's waiting to pay for, well, not olive oil or pecorino sardo, but Silk Fortified Soy Milk. What a mangiacake!

great italians

"I would not wish to a dog or a snake, to the most low and misfortunate creature of the earth — I would not wish to any of them what I have had to suffer for things that I am not guilty of. But my conviction is that I have suffered for things that I am guilty of. I am suffering because I am a radical, and indeed I am a radical; I have suffered because I am an Italian, and indeed I am an Italian".

These lines aren't from a masterwork of Italian theatre. They're the words Bartolomeo Vanzetti, an Italian-born American who along with his friend Alessandro Sacco, was executed in 1927 after a politically motivated unjust trial. Sacco and Vanzetti are today's great Italians.

magari

"Magari" means "if only", as in, "Magari I were David Rocco." Enjoy the link.

around town

Here's a heads up to design throngers who'll be in Montreal up to August 27.

The same show heads to T.O. in late October.

the uh-oh dept.

Che vergogna! What a scandal. As reported in the Times, Roman restaurateurs overcharge gli americani. (And to Italians, that includes Canucks too.)